


the drugs can have my mind, love, but you can have the rest

by majesdane



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-16
Updated: 2010-10-16
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesdane/pseuds/majesdane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It could be the truth, if they wanted it to be.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the drugs can have my mind, love, but you can have the rest

**Author's Note:**

> I've always seen Effy's mental illness as [psychosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis), so that was really the driving force behind where this story is coming from.

  
just paranoid of getting lost or that i might lose.  
\-- 'so i thought,' flyleaf

 

 

 

Fuck. What's up with you then?

Emily. Sat on the kerb near a club Effy hadn't been to in ages. Not since after Tony left. It felt weird, going to places where she knew he'd once been. He hadn't died, but it felt as if he did, sometimes, and the silences and empty spaces that he left behind didn't do much to help that feeling. Like with the dead, she couldn't help but think that maybe if she just tried to keep everything the same, didn't change a thing, then he would just come back and that would be it. Sorted, then.

It wasn't so much that she missed him. She did, but it was more than that. It was more of that she didn't like how she was part of this _thing_ called Bristol, home, _past_ that he left behind. As if it was that easy to just be lumped in with all other the other shit, Effy, Tony Stonem's fucking little sister, she thinks she's got it all together but she doesn't even know the half of it. Right. Christ, she needs a cigarette.

She lights up a fag as Emily peers up at her through bloodshot eyes. Like she can't believe Effy's standing there. Maybe she can't. She jumps at first, guilty-like, as if she's not meant to be here doing whatever it is she's doing. But then Effy sees her relax, slowly slipping back into herself, arms loping around her knees, hugging them to her chest.

Didn't think you were going to come back, she says.

Effy shrugs. Didn't think you'd be somewhere without Naomi. She sits down on the pavement next to Emily, shapes her lips to blow out smoke rings, just like Tony taught her, some years before. She can see his hand, holding the lighter, telling her to inhale. The smoke burns in her lungs and she coughs, recovers. Grins back at Tony who tucks the lighter back into his pocket and steals the fag back from her.

Like this, he says.

Effy take the cigarette back. Three, four tries. Success. Cool, she says.

Naomi is just --, Emily's saying, staring straight ahead. The streets are still wet from the early evening's rain and the light from the club and streetlamps glint off them, casting everything in a pale, orange glow. Bristol's burning, Effy thinks, narrows her eyes until all she can see is the gold-red tip of her fag, slowly burning down. Smoke trails up from the end of it in long, thin curls, dissolving into molecules above their heads.

You don't have to, Effy tells her, reaches down and pulls a small bag of pills out of the front of her dress from where it was tucked beneath the elastic band of her bra. Talk, that is, she clarifies, when Emily stares at her, confused. Four blue pills, one white, two yellow. She doesn't know what either of them do. Make you feel better, she thinks. The specifics don't matter so much.

No need to talk. She doesn't care.

Jesus, Emily says, eyes wide, a little while later. They're back inside the club, sweaty and high and dancing. They started off in the middle, but somehow they've been pushed to the side, backed into their own little dark corner. No one can see them, Effy thinks, watches Emily watch everyone else, swaying a bit. Jesus, what's in these, Ef?

Sunshine, Effy says. It could be the truth.

If they wanted it to be.

Emily presses her to the club wall, fingernails digging into Effy's shoulders. She can see in her mind's eye the marks that'll be there tomorrow morning, little crescent moon shapes all welled up with blood. She'll run her fingers over them and remember that Bristol was burning. That Emily's mouth was against her ear, all her her words hot and hurried.

Fuck, I can't, she's saying, even as her knee presses up between Effy's thighs. I fucking _can't_. Fuck. Why not? _Fuck_. She sounds near in tears.

Come on then, Effy says encouragingly, slips one hand beneath Emily's top, presses her hand against the smooth, soft plane of Emily's stomach. She's not curious. She's fucked girls before, she knows what it's all about. But there's the way Emily moans and shakes her head all at once, and Christ, she _is_ crying, Effy didn't expect that. She shifts, licks away a tear that's rolling down Emily's cheek.

Emily stares up at her. Wide-eyed and confused. Sad. Desperate. She moves forward, strokes Effy sloppily through her dress and knickers. More, then, come on. Emily shakes her head again, all the while pushing her hand up under Effy's dress, just enough so that she can get into her knickers, pushing them aside, and then, Oh yes, lovely, Emily's mouth is against her cheek, wet and sloppy, and she's never fucked a girl who was this practiced before.

Here she is now, in bed, staring up at the ceiling. The room's melting all around her. Paint drips down, splashes against her cheek. She blinks, wipes it away, looks at her fingers, sticky and wet. Her mum was always telling her to paint her room a new color, white is so depressing, love, reminds one of hospitals, and where is her mum now, come on, they've got work to do. The paint's come off the walls, they can do it again.

Do it right this time. Ring Tony and ask him what to do. Can't even speak, don't talk and he'll come back.

Effy, Emily says, shifting on the kerb, cold. She wraps her arms around herself.

Effy blinks, snap back into herself. Emily's looking at her without really looking at her. Effy, do you have any pills?

She shakes her head. Emily looks down, disappointed.

Oh, Effy murmurs, reaches out, strokes Emily's hair. Like blood. When did everything get so red? Someone's bled out, but not her. Emily, probably, she thinks, wonders what condition Emily's heart is in these days. So, are you the doormat then interesting you put up with it how 'bout it then, Peachy, looks like it's just you and me. All right then, who made this a game?

Naomi fucked up, Emily says.

I've fucked up, Emily says, kisses her. Bitter. Smoke and come and alcohol. She should taste sweeter. Naomi's just -- I fucked up, Effy, you can't let her know, yeah? I hate her. Love her, Effy thinks. Love the ones you hate, hate the ones you love. Backwards, forwards, either way. Hate Naomi love Naomi fuck Naomi leave Naomi. Doesn't matter in the end, does it, oh there's the post now, maybe there's something from Tony --

Freddie. Hadn't expected to see him here.

Stupid, really. She asked him to come 'round just the other day. He picks her up by the waist, swings her around, kisses her. It's been a long three months; she doesn't know how it happened, but she'd forgotten what his kisses were like. Forgot about the taste of spliff, forgot about how he always put his hand right where the back of her head and neck met, just the little slope where his fingers fit perfectly. Forgot about how it felt to trace a finger along the outline of his jaw and feel stubble there.

Freddie, cool. You came.

I brought vodka, he says.

Rather be drunk on you, she says, but grabs the bottle from him when they're up in her room and downs half of it anyway. Her whole body feels like it's been set on fire, down her throat, in her stomach. Freddie presses his mouth against the crook of her neck, sucks until the blood rises to the surface. Purple red. Red, like Emily, she thinks, and can't explain why it makes her laugh.

Wonder where Cook is, Freddie says, later.

What about him? She doesn't let herself think about him anymore. It just makes her sad. The kind of sad pills can't fix. She reaches forward, draws circles on his chest, lets him wrap an arm around her shoulders. Just you and me, babe. Always gonna be you and me.

That party. Where he beat up that guy, yeah? Freddie curls a strand of her hair around his finger. It feels as if they're sinking into the bed, being swallowed alive. She closes her eyes and feels the world spin beneath her. That's what she always likes best -- right before you fall asleep, or sometimes if you're just still, you can feel the Earth rotating, around and around and around, and it makes you think, everything is always moving. Changing. You can't feel it, but it is.

She doesn't mention the pills she took earlier. Christ. Where'd she get them from again? Nicked them from her mum's medicine cabinet, she thinks. Maybe. She has to check her nightstand drawer later, see if the sixty quid she had in there earlier is gone or not. Maybe she bought them.

The ceiling's melting again. They really need to fix it, put on a fresh coat of paint.

Fucking mum and dad and Tony, where've they gone, she can't do this on her own. Lazy fuckers. Offer advice and then fuck off, leave her to sort everything out. Freddie's here, maybe he can help. He's got her heart in his hands, they'll use that, paint the whole room red. Paint the whole goddamn house red is what they'll do, she can feel him, hard, pushes her hips into his. Yeah, all right then.

Get Cook to come around, he can help too. JJ as well, let's get all three of the goddamn Three Musketeers in here and see what comes out of it what the hell can we all do together let's fix something for once since everything is so goddamn broken and Oh, yeah, he's got her hands on her, covering her tits with his palms and has she felt this before, she can't remember, it's all such a fucking blur.

Baby girl I'm a blur, she sings, laughs, comes.

nothing's ever perfect.

i thought it could be, katie sighs. come on then, she's saying.let's go take care of you effy, how about it? you're okay. that sounded convincing, didn't it? what's changed, oh nothing, just me. she's katie fucking fitch, don't you know? just fucking _be_ katie, why don't you.

yeah, love. bit of a mind fuck, really. it's what she wanted though, isn't it?

bristol's burning and the devil's come to town oh, a devil with cook's eyes, she can still feel them on her and she wants to cry because there's a sadness in her that she can't push down and freddie's outside but he doesn't know how to fix this and no one does and there it is, right there, the hollow point of a bullet that she's got pressed to her wrist and there, emily, wouldn't you like that, we can just bleed out together.

god everything feels so heavy now she can't move just rooted to the spot and oh, how lovely, she can hear tony again, just, you don't fool me, effy stonem, and his eyes are so so so dark, they're floating on, what, feels like water looks like clouds, oh jesus they're just flying, aren't they, everyone's jealous because the stonems, they've got it all worked out, you see, and well, everyone loves her, of course they do.

(the woods. a girl. don't worry about her. elizabeth stonem. little girl, lost in the woods. the world's gotten too big and she lost her footing, fell off the side and started drowning.)

You can't take back what happened, Naomi says, doesn't meet her eyes. I wish you could, but you can't.

Effy wonders what it is Naomi could take back. She tries to remember, but she can't. Feels like she's knocking her head against a brick wall. Nothing to show for it but a headache. She places her hand on tops of Naomi's, squeezes it gently. Emily loves you, she says, because it seems like the right thing to say.

Yeah, well. Naomi sniffs. Then, cockier, like how Effy remembers to her, Go on, lie to me. I want to see this.

It feels good to laugh again. The sun's a bit too bright and the grass a bit too green, but still, it feels good. Naomi squeezes her hand back and Effy thinks, Yeah, we're all right, and wonders when Naomi became a person that she didn't know at all. Wonders why Naomi looks at her with eyes that don't seem quite as clear as they used to. Well, maybe it's just from the angle of sunlight.

How's Emily?

Don't know, really, Naomi says. Her fingers twitch. Dying for a fag. They're not allowed to smoke them here in the hospital, Effy knows. Not like that would matter, usually. But things aren't _usual_ any longer, Effy knows. And Naomi's not -- well, she may have, but not now. She's too up inside of herself. Timid.

Effy rubs at her eyes. The sun's making them hurt. She'd tired. You all right?

Naomi offers her a half-smile. Oh, you know. Cool, I guess. You?

Cool. I guess.

He says that love is supposed to make you go mad, but it feels so wrong, it _does_ , and when she runs her finger over the marks on her wrists she knows that she's right. Happiness and madness can co-exist. Just push all of the bad feelings away, and what have you got left? Just happiness. See, no madness at all.

And she knows it, they've been happy before. She remembers swimming, her arms aching, her lungs burning, her lips bruised from kissing. Remembers clear skies and a field like it was their own, when the sun shone down and she thought, Yeah, all right, this could maybe work. And there were times, too, without Freddie, when she was happy, and that was love too, wasn't it? Maybe it wasn't the same sort of love, but she knows it _was_ love. Not mad, she thinks. Love just makes you -- she doesn't know.

(Just, not mad.)

The rain pours down and puts out the Bristol fire, if it ever existed. She watches them all, outside looking in, though everything's a blur with the rain running down the glass. She shouldn't be out here, she knows. But she just feels so incomplete, now. Talks of college and grades and future make her feel physically ill; she wraps her arms around herself, holds on for dear life. When did everything go so wrong? She should have been there, taking exams. Should have been there when they studied, complained about the long hours, smoked cigarettes until the whole pack was gone.

So where had she been? White walls, she thinks. Everything's just falling apart.

The whole world knows us, he says, and he's _here_ finally, and real. We're Cook and Effy.

He tastes just like how she remembers.

Normal again. As normal as they say, anyway. For any given value of it. There's a kind of safety that comes with it, not necessarily from _being_ normal but from knowing that people _say_ that you are. It's not always about the knowing, she doesn't think, it's just about the feeling. Conceptual. I'm just saying, you can't see it. Everything is much better when normal comes around again, so much easier.

Like Emily and Naomi and their kisses always look so soft, Cook and his faded jeans and washed out glory and an arm slung around JJ's neck, Katie with grin and lips sticky from vodka, Panda and Thomas and their fingers interlaced. Yeah, normal then. Just look at everyone; that's what normal is, isn't it?

There's Karen too, but that's not right, is it? Backwards. No Freddie. No Tony either, still. After the party, she'll go out looking for them. They say they won't leave, say that they'll come back, but they never do, do they? She's got to go find them. Maybe that's what they've just been wanting. To be found.

Going out for a piss, then, Cook says.

Effy watches him go, finishing off one of the bottles of vodka on his way out, dropping it off to the side right before the door. She squints, stares at his back. Looks like blood, she thinks, grips the side of the couch. No, hang on, not blood, can't be. It's just the way his shirt looks in the light. Of course.

She almost laughs, but stops herself. Of course. Everything's better now.

(but, oh, the blood --)


End file.
